BBC News: Katy Perry was left dangling above fans' heads when a floating platform malfunctioned on her world tour.
The star had just performed Thinking Of You, perched several storeys above the audience on a model of Saturn.
But the prop refused to return to the stage, leaving the star stranded.
"This is the first time I've been stuck in space," she joked.
8 comments:
Well, someone is having a really bad day at work because of that malfunction. I wonder what went wrong. One one hand I figure there must’ve been something they didn’t account for with the design, but on the other hand sometimes stuff just happens. I think what this really shows is the importance of a performer being able to work with unexpected events. I doubt Katy Perry had a plan in mind for exactly what she’d do if the Saturn got stuck (though, I suppose if I were her I would’ve at least considered the idea at some point). But, based on the video she did a really good job of keeping the audience happy during the technical difficulties, and I think so audience members (such as the people that caught her when she jumped) were probably actually happy that the malfunction occurred. In the end, she managed to prevent the problem from negatively impacting the experience of the show as a whole, which in many ways is what really matters in the end.
I really appreciate how casual Katy acted about the malfunction. I can only imagine how chaotic back stage must be as everyone scrambles to fix the problem. When I stage managed I remember the crew's worst nightmare was a noticeable mistake to the audience. I also remember the stress added on when an actor doesn't know what to do when there is a malfunction and then when they get angry later. It is interesting to note that even after this malfunction and the ones previous to this, they continue to show the performance as planned in their tour. I think that is a really smart tactic because eventually the crew will get it right and it will be so much more amazing for both sides of the proscenium.
The article title alone began to get me anxious. It is always the goal for a show to run smoothly and without problems but when a problem does occur; you aim to solve that problem as quickly as possible and you do so while running around looking like a chicken with their head cut off. Maybe not quite like that but it sure feels like it. I can only imagine what was occurring when the malfunction became noticeable to the crew, I’m sure they were aiming to fix it and trying to do so without the audience having to notice until it was too late of course. That is where the second stress factor comes into play, you have no clue what the performer will do. Katy Perry did a very good job at this point though because the malfunction became very obvious and she did a very good job of working with it and keeping the crowd engaged making it a moment instead of a disappointment for the audience. I wish there were some more insight into the malfunction and the inner workings that went on behind it in this article but the article was still good and I enjoyed the video, and seeing the crowd not disappointed by the events that took place is always calming. If it can be avoided it is always preferable but in this instance, it was very well dealt with as it seems.
Ok, this is actually pretty funny. As long as no one gets hurt in these kinds of things I think it’s funny. The idea of Katy Perry just hanging out, stranded on her raised platform. I feel like Katy Perry knows how bad her music is, so to make it tolerable for the masses her production team keeps coming up with more and more bizarre ideas for her live concerts. The thought probably is that if the audience is so overstimulated by the visuals of Katy Perry’s show that they may not listen to the horrible music. The article reads: “After about two minutes, the singer was lowered manually to the ground, but could not get all the way down without crushing the audience.
Instead, she dived into the crowd and walked back to the stage.
"I guess I'm just going to have to get down and walk amongst my people. I love this so much, This is what you get for trying to bring out all of space to Nashville.” And really, its such an annoying thing for her to say.
I find it interesting to read about Katy Perry’s Tennessee concert from an article on the BBC. Anyway, I can’t say I’m shocked that this happened. It seems like this happens once or twice on each of these gigantic tours. I don’t know how much testing goes into these rigs before sending them out on the road. I would guess a fair amount. This just goes to show that errors like this can, and do, occur out in the real world where there are professionals and money. It also says that even with all those professionals and money, one should still have a backup or emergency plan. It doesn’t sound like this was the case this time. I have to say it sounds like Perry handled it like a champ – not freaking out, not screaming. She continued to interact with the crowd and went on with her show after returning to earth.
This moment really reminds of something that I just read in Song of Spider Man when one of the actresses got stuck onstage during the first preview. After she was up their for a while the stage manager made a joke over the god mic about it to lighten the audience's mood. Katy Perry's relaxed response and openness with the audience about what was happening is pretty similar to this, and it seems like the crowd took it pretty well. I think that sometimes in situations like that all you can do is acknowledge that the "magic" has been broken and approach it with a sense of humor. The fact that she has "Left Shark" the uncordinated back up dancer in her show shows that she doesn't take herself too seriously. I hope that Katy Perry's team was able to figure out what the problem was and prevent it for future performances, as the article did mention that they had postponed some of the earlier tour dates for production issues.
Despite the awkward and potentially dangerous moment of getting stuck mid-air, Katy Perry really handled it pretty well. I wonder what went wrong and had it happened before. While she was just chilling out there and phrasing this as a YouTube moment and interacting with her fans, the production team was probably overwhelmed with stress and had to troubleshoot the automatic system to make sure it does not happen again. It is quite reassuring when you work with automation that the back-up should be you can rescue either people or objects manually and safely. Katy Perry really responded to the unexpected accident really calmly and eased the crowd into an uplifting and amusing mood because if she got panicked, who knows how her fans who were right under the planet would react and it might even lead to a disastrous chaos when people tried to run away or something.
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